Reviews and guests

After Jon Haddock's visit we continued our professional practices discussions focusing on contracts, budgets, and financial issues as well as grants, residencies, and jobs. The interesting thing about addressing these topics with graduate students is they already have a level of experience with some of these things so we can really discuss how to approach applying for a grant, or how to understand a contract in depth, and from a variety of personal experiences.

February 16-20 brought Second Semester Reviews. During the week all of the first year students in each of the departments meet with four of the Artists-in-Residence from the Academy. The students meet individually with the Artists-in-Residence for approximately 30 minutes and use the information from those conversations to evaluate their work and what directions they will pursue. Fiber went on the Friday of that week which made for a long and stressful week, but I think all of them would tell you the discussions were very helpful.


We were very fortunate to host St. Louis based artists, Kim Humphries and Sarah Colby on February 23. Kim is the Director of Exhibitions at Laumeier Sculpture Park and Sara works in community arts education. They presented lectures about the development of their individual work, collaborative work, and what they do in their day jobs. One of the exciting things about their lectures was the connections they revealed to ways that people in the department are working. So when they met individually with students there was a great deal of excitement.

Today we will be meeting to critique the work of two Fiber students, Ema Ishii and Mary Smull, as well as the work of two Print Media students, Carrie Ida Edinger and Terry Conrad, who are taking electives in Fiber this semester. It should be a good day.